Chapter 41

At this moment, Li Qiu's lean, chiseled face looked remarkably resolute. His eyes, made more prominent by his thinness, shone brightly, and his usually relaxed sword-like brows were tightly furrowed into peaks. His gaze swept the surroundings with intense vigilance. Yet the surroundings remained eeriely quiet. The shrill, piercing screams of the wandering ghosts had vanished completely, as though they had all been dragged back into the underworld in an instant. Even so, the group did not dare let down their guard. Suddenly, a rotting, blood-stained hand wrapped only in exposed veins lunged out from the ground, grabbed Zheng Shude by the ankle, and yanked downward with brute force. Zheng Shude's face drained of color; caught completely off guard, he was dragged down in an instant. None of them had anticipated an attack from beneath the earth, and for a fleeting moment, they were too hurried to mount a rescue in time. Just then, Wang Shuo flicked his wrist and hurled a flying knife with a sharp *swoosh*, instantly severing the decaying hand. Only then was Zheng Shude able to scramble back to his feet. By now, however, his face was pale as paper, and beads of sweat the size of soybeans streamed down his forehead. He had clearly been badly shaken.